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Java loses when you compare it to Smalltalk, Lisp, or anything else even remotely decent. Java wins when you compare it to C++, at least until you try to mix Java generics with Java closures, in which case you have to use trigraphs in your STL templates to match the level of ugliness.

Actually, with compile-as-you-code tools like Eclipse, I've found that the compile+run portion of the edit-test-fix-test loop in Java represents a similar amount of time as the compile+run portion of a similar loop in Perl.

That said, the actual coding time usually compares disfavorably to higher-level languages like Perl in my personal experience.

Really? It's slow to start up, but after that it doesn't seem slow at all to me. All of the slow parts (indexing, compiling, SCM synchronization) happens in a background thread and does not interfere with editing. It's the most productive programming environment I've ever encountered. Honestly, the Perl 6 feature I'm most looking forward to is its improved parsability so maybe a really great Eclipse plugin will be possible (no offense intended toward the EPIC plugin, which tries to provide Perl 5 support in Eclipse and only barely succeeds).

I think the Eclipse==slow meme is as useless as the Perl==unreadable meme. It's complaining about all the wrong things and ignoring the overwhelming value of the tool.

Eclipse usage is subtly mandated for me at $WORK. I do like it, but it is slow. Not always slow, but often slow. There's probably some reorganization we could do to our project to speed some things up, but I'm not an Eclipse wizard, yet (hoping to achieve that later this year).

I'm not going to trash the tool, but I'm not going to say it isn't slow, either. It's slow for me. May not be for everybody. Memory will probably help, if they ever get me some.:)

Oh, and not all of that stuff happens in bac

--J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

Ahh, well, yes. With Java, RAM equals performance. I develop on a machine with 2GB and a dual 3.4 GhZ P4D and I set -Xmx=768M for Eclipse. I typically just leave Eclipse running for a week or so at a time, so it's always up to date.Our codebase is large and well-documented, so I rely heavily on Eclipse's tools for text searching, API searching, autocompletion, Javadoc tooltips, and global refactoring. The quantity of keyboard shortcuts is astonishing and generally mnemonic if idiosyncratic. Once you gr

It's complaining about all the wrong things and ignoring the overwhelming value of the tool.

I'm sure there's tremendous amount of value in the tool. I'm only starting to use it for serious things, and I can't seem to get anything done quickly. It feels like the programming equivalent of Mac OS X, where people who know what they're doing have to wear oven mitts to slow them down and let them enjoy the aesthetics, except without the aesthetics.